Scaled migration of telco workloads to the public cloud unlikely before 2028-2030, according to STL Partners’ latest report 

STL Partners dives deep into the current positioning of each of the three hyperscalers – AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure – on the telco vertical outside China, their level of success in convincing operators to migrate their business to the public cloud and the main hurdles around workload migration

LONDON – 22 August 2024 – Scaled migration of telco workloads to the public cloud is unlikely to happen until the next wave of network refresh expected with the move to 6G, and large-scale open RAN and virtualised RAN (vRAN) developments from 2028 onwards, according to new research from STL Partners. 

In its latest report, ‘Hyperscalers in the telco vertical: Strategies and successes’, the telecoms consultancy and research company examines the current role of hyperscaler activity in the telco realm and offers insights on how operators can improve their innovation levels by embracing the public cloud approach. 

Among its key findings, the research firm suggests that telcos have been steadily moving their business support systems (BSS) and telco IT workloads to the public clouds of the top three hyperscalers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure – since the end of the 2010s. 

The radio access network (RAN) ranks on the lower end on the maturity scale, followed by core migration, and by deployments of edge computing and private networks, partly due to the immaturity in these markets. Meanwhile, the picture is mixed when it comes to operational support systems (OSS) migration to the public cloud. 

Challenges and opportunities 

STL’s study highlights several significant hurdles on the telco journey towards public cloud migration, with sovereignty cropping up as a main barrier in many regions, and particularly in Europe. 

There is also a question around the readiness of operators for the public cloud. “Telcos have invested heavily in virtualising and modernising their networks, but migrating certain workloads to the public cloud requires that next step in networks being really cloud-native – and many operators are still in that process”, claims Emma Buckland, the report’s lead author.  

Another challenge might be that the telco vertical is – at least for now – too small for the public cloud players, as network workloads don’t provide enough business to them until the next network refresh. However, a silver lining might be on the cards, as telcos are found to be increasingly keen to use hyperscalers’ tooling and capabilities in data and AI, in a bid to keep up with the dynamic pace of developments and innovation in this realm. 

Finally, if operators are to free up resources so that they can focus on innovation, the research firm urges that more telco workloads be migrated in a mix of public and hybrid environment (for example, on-premises servers with hyperscale cloud layer for distributed workloads). 

The 50-page report includes a detailed profile for each hyperscaler and an assessment of their positioning on the telco vertical for each type of telco workload migration to the public cloud. A sample of the report is available here and it can also be purchased on our store here.

STL Partners is a leading, global research and consulting firm that focuses on the telecoms and technology industries. We enable telcos, tech companies, and their partners to make the world run better. More information on our research and services is available at www.stlpartners.com